Suikoden II

PSX

Konami - 1998

So here you are thinking, "Suikoden? What the heck is Suikoden? And how the heck do you pronounce it anyways?" Well. Let's start there. Sue-Ko-Den. Now, everyone say it with me... "Sue-Ko-Den." Good job. Ok, let me start by saying, if you are planning on playing this game, first go and find Suikoden I. Play and beat it perfectly (see my Suikoden I review) and then you get some secret cool characters for Suikoden II, as well as pumped up characters. Who wouldn't want that? Plus, you can find Suikoden I most anywhere for pretty cheap. And it is short (20 hours).

Ok, to start out, Suikoden II's plot is much better in terms of keeping a central plot with the main characters, but also severly lacks in that if you have played Suikoden I, you will recognize most every plot devise, as they use them all again. For example, not to ruin the game, but you must find the Star Dragon Sword and defeat Neclord again. What? Didn't I kill him in the last game? Well, at least they explain it, so don't worry too much. But the story is not the innovative part.

In Suikoden, you collect, just like pokemon, 108 people. In Suikoden II, you collect 108 characters, plus about 10 secret characters. Yes, just like Pokemon, no, not just like the last game. In Suikoden II, you must actually preform sidequests to get the characters to join. Some are easy, like playing a game of dice with Tai Ho, but some take a while, like Hix and Tengaar's side quest with the unicorn. Some are also very crazy, like to get the secret Squirrels, you have to bring only the hero into battle in Greenhill zone, and wait until you run into a squirrel in a random fight, which takes quite a long time.

My favorite part of rpg's are the characters. Usually there are one or two at the most really cool characters. Since in Suikoden II, there are more than 108 characters to recruit, you get many, many cool characters. For example, Valeria returns in all her coolness, Victor's back, and so is Flik. LoreLai, Kasumi, Eilie, Pesmerga, Kinnison, Clive, Anita, Genshu, Oulan, Killey, Ayda, Sasuke, Wakaba, and of course by favorite, Sierra. Needless to say, there are a lot more cooler characters in the sequel. So now you are thinking, 108 characters. How they heck do I level them all up with 3 people in a party? Well, for starters, you have 6 people in a party. That speeds it up a bunch. Plus, the game is set up so that you never need to use most of the characters, and if you did, you can catch up on levels real fast. I usually save the crappy characters, and uncool looking ones 'til the end, then take them in about 10 fights to get them to level 50. It's amazing just to watch a character at level 2 sit around watching your 5 good characters whoop an enemy, then gain 15 levels at the end of the fight. Which is what happens.

Another great thing about the battles is that they are most always rather easy. Sure they are a bit harder than the first game, but not much. If they ever get hard, upgrade your weapons. Then they are easy again. The dungeons are most always still straight forward, with exceptions being secret paths that are hidden and you walk into by accident, which there are more of than you would think. Just keep running into suspicious looking walls. There you go. And if anyone laughs at you for hitting your head against a wall, tell them you lost your contacts and can't see in front of your hand, you moron.

The characters also preform great team-up attacks, where two or more characters will do some cool attack against an enemy. To find these, bring people who know each other, have something in common, or are rivals into the fight. The best teamup, in terms of usefulness, is is the Hero, and the Hero (McDohl) from the last game. But the only way to get him is to have a perfect game in Suikoden I, and transfer the data over to II. This attack will kill off all the weaker enemies and make the hard ones die in one round due to the other characters in the party attacking. Very handy to speed up the game. Remember this!

The game also features 3 different types of battles. Besides the 6 against enemies, there are war battles. Greatly changed from the rock-paper-scissors of the first game, you now have units on the screen, divided up by groups of 1-3 people. You can also choose who goes in what unit. Each character has different abilities, like Knights can ride horses, so they can move farther, and some have times when they do special attacks. Others are magic users or archers. You move your characters on a grid, like a tactics game, and each fight with an enemy will either lose half your "men" in the division that attacks, or half the enemy's "men." So two hits will kill off either your men or the enemies. Sometimes your characters can die, forever, never coming back ever, in a battle, so then you have to reset and try again. Sigh.

Another sweet thing in the game is the one on one battle mode. Your main character goes up against Bosses, one at a time. Instead of the normal battle setup, you only have 3 options, and no ways of healing. You have attack, defend, and desperate attack. Attack will still hurt the enemy defending, defend will hurt the enemy desperate attacking, and desperate attack will hurt the enemy attacking for more than a regular attack. Sounds complicated, but the enemy taunts you before each choice. You have to make sense of their taunt, and predict what they will do by what they said. (For example, if they say, "Better watch out, little man!" they are probably gonna do a desperate attack, and if they say, "Wow, you're better than I thought." they will probably defend.)

One last thing I should mention. So you are collecting 108 characters, eh? Well, you probably want a place to put all your characters. And you can, with this handy-dandy Castle you build. Sure, you don't get to decide where people stay, but it gets bigger with more people, and is really really fun to run around in, watching your characters doing different stuffs. Plus, the castle is infinitely bigger than the castle in the first game, there are about a gazillion mini games you can play in the castle, such as a cooking (iron Chef) mini game that is totally fun, or a dancing game, or whack a mole! Plus, with characters interacting in the town (ie: chasing each other thru the streets, or fighting in the main square randomly) the town is just fun to run around in.

What liked:108 Characters? Swell! A great and utterly satisfying plot? Tubular! 75% of ther characters I just played as in Suikoden I returning and being pumped up from my last game? Radical! Lots of different types of battles (as seen above) also lead to enough changes in pace? To quote my boss, Awesome!

What disliked: It takes up 2 memory card slots. Suikoden 1 and 2 along with Vagrant Story's 3 practially take up a memory card themselves.

What to expect: Suikoden I with a lot more fun, longer, prettier graphics, and did I mention more fun?

What not to expect: Again, Final Fantasy.

What's so different from this and other games of it's genre: 108 Characters, a mix of tactical prowess and turn-based fun, and umm... well... that's about it. Don't expect much at all different from Suikoden I though.

Ratings on:

Control: 7 - It's sprite movement. It's terribly hard to go wrong with any rpg.

Graphics: 9 - This and Breath of Fire IV are my favorite sprites in any game, and I personally like sprites more than polygons. (Although this is soon to change with the approach of Suikoden III).

Sound: 8 - Personally, I think this soundtrack, or at least the opening song, is better than a Final Fantasy soundtrack.

Style: 1 - It's Suikoden I with better graphics and a changed tactical system. It has nothing new to add, but don't let that scare you away from such a great game. It has perfected everything it steals from other games of the genre.

1st hour: 10 - Jeans, both legs.

5th hour: 7 - Starting to realize that the game taunts me with new characters, then I lose them for a while.

1st week: 8 - Finally got my castle. It took forever to get it though.

5th week: 7 - Is this Suikoden I's plot? If so, well, I am ok with that, 'cause the game still rules.

#1 reason why I hate this game: I can never save Nanami, no matter how hard I try. Sob! I am sooo sorry Nanami!

by Hawke